


Maybe You Know More Than Me

by Ningikuga



Category: That Guy with the Glasses/Channel Awesome
Genre: Impromptu Clothing Removal, Other, Song-and-Dance Number
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 09:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7635355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ningikuga/pseuds/Ningikuga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Nostalgia Chick has ordered a song-and-dance number, and it's up to Oancitizen to show the rest of the assembled reviewers how it's done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe You Know More Than Me

**Author's Note:**

> For [this prompt](http://tgwtg-meme.livejournal.com/1329.html?thread=660785#t660785).
> 
> This work is intended to depict the characters/personae, not real people, and absolutely no implications about the people who write and play those characters are intended or should be inferred.

“Oh, for . . .” Oancitizen ran his hand down his face, complete with exasperated beard-stroke. “That’s not going to work at all.”

“Relax,” Paw said behind him. “It’s not as if they’re stripping. It’ll be fine if it’s funny.”

“One person off-beat is funny,” Oan riposted. “One person on-beat is just sad.”

Film Brain shrank down, his head nearly buried in the fluffy cerulean boa wrapped around his shoulders. “Which one of us was on-beat?” he squeaked.

For a moment, Oan looked as if he were about to cry. Instead, he heaved a sigh that nearly rattled the stage lights. “Todd,” he stated, pointing. “Todd had the beat right; he’s just dancing from his ankles instead of his hips.” He switched hands, pointing at the Cinema Snob instead. “And Snob has the motions down, but this piece isn’t in 3/4. Snob, watch Todd’s feet; Todd, do what Snob is doing with his hips. Film Brain, Linkara, Sage, Phelous, just - just watch Todd’s feet for right now. We’ll get through the bump-and-grind part later. Line back up and we’ll take it from the top. Paw, reset the track.”

The six reviewers in sequin-spangled short-shorts, floor-length boas, and bellhop jackets (how Todd had found one with a hood, no one was sure, although it was still strange to see him in bright blue instead of smoke grey) lined back up, finding their marks with hesitating feet. Sage raised an eyebrow in Paw’s direction. “How long do we have before the Nostalgia Chick gets here?” he asked.

“Two hours, tops,” Paw answered as Oan paced in a circle. “Maybe less, if traffic on the turnpike isn’t bad. Which is why we’re not asking anyone to lip-synch; we’ve barely got enough rehearsal time as it is.”

“Be glad these are her orders and not Hagan’s,” Oan added. “For her, I’m not sure being funny would get us a pass.”

Todd nodded. “Either she’ll have a laugh, see the idea won’t work for the full video, and give up, which leaves us home free, or she’ll decide it’s good enough, and then we’re stuck here for another hour of filming, but whatever, it’ll be done,” he said. “But if she shows up and feels like we’re not taking her idea seriously . . . .” He shuddered elaborately, and the others murmured their grudging assent.

Oan raised his hands like a conductor. “All right. Cue ready, Paw, and-a-one, and-a-two -”

A few minutes later, Oan restrained Paw from hitting his forehead repeatedly on the soundboard, cut the music, and announced, “Okay, that was actually better, but someone needs to help Linkara out of the orchestra pit.”

“I’m fine!” Linkara’s hand appeared from the pit just at the level of the stage, thumb up. “Just couldn’t see the edge of the stage,” he continued, “but I’m fine, no harm done, I don’t even think I ripped the costume.”

Phelous rolled his eyes and wordlessly strode to the stage’s lip, catching Linkara’s hand in his own and hauling him upwards. Sage and the Snob eyed each other warily while Film Brain attempted to disentangle his boa from Todd’s.

Oan reset the sound cue himself, handed Paw an icepack, and rubbed his hands together. “All right,” he explained, coming back around the soundboard to stage left, “Sage, you got the hip motion right, but it’s downstage and then stage right, not the other way around. Snob, your left foot should be hitting the ground at the beginning of every eight-count; I think if you can manage that, the rest will look okay. Linkara, first of all, clean your glasses; secondly, the leap at the first chorus doesn’t need to be that big, but if you feel compelled to show off, go for height, not for distance. Phelous, watch Snob for the hip-sway and please, _please_ try to look like you’re having at least a tiny bit of fun. Todd, Film Brain, that was much better - just tuck the ends of the boas in so they don’t fly off into each other when you do twirls and flips.”

Phelous grunted as he set Linkara back down onto the stage and just barely missed the footlights. “It might help,” he drawled, “if we could actually see what this is supposed to look like.”

Nodding vigorously, Sage added, “Not the line stuff - we’ll have to figure that out - but it’s hard to visualize the basic move sequence when we’ve only heard them called off.”

Oancitizen considered that, rolled his bottom lip under his teeth, then inclined his head in grudging agreement. “All right,” he said, removing his jacket and draping it neatly across the top of the soundboard. “You all come stand here. Paw, start on my mark.” He kicked off his loafers, untucked his shirt, and grabbed a spare boa in pastel lime from the rack at the edge of the stage, draping it once around his neck. He raised a hand, then nodded at Paw.

The music kicked in softly, with a strummed acoustic opening. Oan swayed left, then right, then repeated the motions with a sweep of each arm. As the drumbeat kicked in, he marked time, left, right, left, right, then strode towards the front of the stage, swinging each hip as the opposite foot touched the ground.

As the vocals started, he shifted to a sidestep, four beats to stage right, four beats to stage left, four steps back, followed by a four beat knee bend with shoulders forwards, then back. Four beats forwards with the hip pops again, sidestep stage right, stage left, and a four beat pivot in place with his hands in the air.

Second vocal came in, and Oan reached out left and right; this step called for them to have their arms around each others’ shoulders. For two beats, he leaned left, then to the center for two beats, then two beats right, then two beats center again. He repeated those two measures, adding a shoulder shimmy on each beat, sending the boa feathers fluttering around his neck. He grapevined stage right for four beats, his feet twisting slightly as they hit the floor and his hips swaying lightly, then to stage left for four beats, reversing the motions effortlessly; four steps forwards, then lean forward one beat, pause one beat, shoulder shimmy and back up. He was smiling, with his eyes half-closed.

Film Brain’s jaw had fallen open; Cinema Snob tsk’ed and shut it for him. Sage was watching with the look of a man who desperately wished he had a camera. Paw was nodding to the beat, counting off silently and following Oan with his eyes. Linkara and Todd were staring at Oan and doing the moves in miniature with their hands and feet. Even Phelous looked non-trivially less bored.

The chorus arrived with a roar. Oan turned to face stage right, kicked high with his right leg, brought it back, kicked with his left, faced front, framed his face with his hands, grinned exaggeratedly, popped a hip, flipped the boa, turned to stage left, ran one step and then took a two-beat leap, faced front, looked up and shook his hands in the air, stepped forwards, added a deep knee-bend with a hip grind, popped back up, did an about-face on the ball of his left foot, propped his hands on his hips, flashed a smile over his shoulder to the audience, then let it morph into the cruelest of evil grins.

As he repeated the opening moves again, arms swaying like snakes and then perching on his hips as he marked time again, Linkara murmured, “Did he come up with the whole thing while we were searching for costumes?”

“Yup,” Paw agreed. “I got to watch him work it out, but honestly, this is a lot more impressive.”

Oan repeated the steps for the first and second vocal parts, this time putting a little english on them, adding a dip of a hip, a sweep of a foot, or a sway of a hand for ornamentation at the ends of the measures. He was visibly starting to sweat, but he was still grinning, not quite so evilly.

The second chorus substituted a bent-kneed stomp in a circle, four measures left and then four measures right, for the line kick and the leap, with the six of them linking arms and facing outwards; Oan managed it without support from either side, which looked suspiciously like a Russian folkdance. The line was supposed to unfold, then go into a burlesque bump-and-grind, ending with both hands clasped over their hearts; Oan cocked his hips, shook his ass, reached for his shirt placket, and yanked. As buttons flew in a shower across the stage, he threw back his head and then tossed away his shirt, somehow managing to leave the boa undisturbed.

Sage let out a wolf-whistle. Film Brain looked like he was about to faint. Phelous opened his eyes all the way.

The next verse was acoustic again, and Oan toned it down, slowly and sinuously weaving back and forth like a trail of smoke. As the instruments crashed back in, he spun on one foot, hands spread, face turned to the ceiling, chest forwards - clockwise, then counterclockwise. He reached up, closing a fist on thin air on the held note before the final chorus. With a chuckle, Paw tapped a switch on the light board; suddenly, Oan was in a single spotlight on a dark stage.

The last chorus started, and Oan repeated the moves from the first chorus, again embellished with extra twists of hands and hips. This one was a double refrain, so the second time through used the second chorus’s moves; Oan bounced and slithered through them, the muscles of his back visibly working as he stomped and pivoted. Instead of clasping their hands this time, they were all supposed to turn on tiptoes with their backs to the audience and drop the boas; Oan pirouetted and flung the feathery lime accessory off with a flourish, letting it brush his backside on the way down.

The music stopped. Linkara broke into loud and vigorous applause. The others jumped as if they were startled out of a trance, then joined him, raggedly but enthusiastically.

Oan, too, suddenly seemed to realize where he was, and that he was for some reason no longer wearing a shirt. Blushing furiously, he grabbed it from where it had fallen and started collecting the far-flung buttons.

“Here, I’ve got a flashlight,” Linkara announced, bounding up the stairs to the stage and assisting in the button search. 

Film Brain turned to the Cinema Snob and started whispering at a frenetic pace. The Snob nodded, then added something else in a low mutter.

Todd turned to Phelous and Sage. “Did you get that?” he asked; the other two didn’t look too terribly sure, but nodded anyway.

Oan hustled off the stage, clutching at his shirt with one hand to keep it closed while he shrugged his jacket back on with the other. “Did that make more sense?” he asked, looking at Film Brain and Phelous in particular. He buttoned the jacket, despite the sweat still beading on his face.

“I think so,” Film Brain said. “Can we go ahead and try it while it’s still fresh?”

Sage added, “I might need you to demonstrate a couple of those moves again. Just, you know, to make sure I got them down.”

“I might need you to demonstrate that ending move five or six more times,” the Snob chimed in, grinning like a wolf.

Linkara huffed at them. “Survival before pleasure,” he remarked, frowning at Sage. “Unless you really want the Chick pissed at us, in which case I’ll be happy to tell her it was your idea.”

“No need to be ugly about it,” Sage replied as they lined up on stage and rearranged their boas.

Oan took a heavy breath and steadied himself against the soundboard. He still wasn’t wearing his shoes. “Everyone on their marks?” he asked. “Okay, on four, Paw, and-a-one, and-a-two -”

At the very back of the theater, Nella whispered, “Shall I tell them we got here early?”

Chick shook her head. “Nah, let’s let them run through it a couple more times before we make our official entrance,” she decided. “There’s no way they could know we’d make it through traffic from the airport this fast, and honestly -” her eyes darted to Oancitizen’s back - “I’m kind of enjoying watching them sweat it out.”

Nella watched the six men on the stage shimmy more or less in unison; a look of contentment spread across her face. “I think I see what you mean,” she agreed.

**Author's Note:**

> The song he's choreographed here is G.R.L.'s "Ugly Heart," and if anyone got that from the description of the intro, vocals, and chorus, I owe you a cookie. The title is also from the same song.


End file.
